


For the Man Who Has Everything

by Masu_Trout



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Established Relationship, Extra Treat, Fluff, Gift Giving, M/M, Robot/Human Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-20 05:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14888286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: There was no holiday worse for trying to celebrate in a post-apocalyptic land of barely-restrained anarchy than Valentine's Day, and there was no one worse for trying to celebrate it with than Nick Valentine.It's Valentine's Day, and Nick might be the only person in Diamond City who knows what that means. A gift is in order, but what do you get a man who doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, and—toughest of all—can't get drunk?





	For the Man Who Has Everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Allekha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/gifts).



The past few weeks had taken Nate from easy confidence, to strained confidence, to a lack of confidence so profoundly and astonishingly deep that he could have strapped himself into his power armor, let himself sink, and run out of air long before he hit bottom. 

Nick, well—Nick _remembered_ , was the thing. He caught Nate's references to poetry and movies and slogans for products that hadn't been sold in decades. He'd try to act disapproving, hiding a smile behind a grey-toned hand, whenever Nate told a Diamond City local that baseball had been a religious rite (which, in fairness, was very nearly true) or that pre-war housecats had been four feet long and deathly venomous (which... wasn't, but it did make a good story). He told Nate godawful old jokes with the sort of quiet glee that came from knowing someone else would understand just how terrible they were, he knew what _tax returns_ and _mimosas_ and _capybara_ meant, he recognized the horrors of the pre-war world just as easily as its comforts. He could make Nate feel so nostalgic it almost made him sick, and then just easily say something that chased the loneliness back.

And as hard as it was sometimes for Nate to accept that the first thirty years of his life had been stripped away to nothing by that great thermonuclear blast, it had to be harder on Nick. He couldn't imagine how it must feel to go through life remembering things that hadn't actually happened to you. Recollection without collection, an existence built out of deja vu. Thinking on it too long always left Nate desperate to help Nick make memories that were well and truly his.

(Preferably memories involving Nate, if at all possible. And a warm room and a smile and maybe some wandering hands and... well, suffice to say he had some ideas about what might be most worth slotting into the memory banks.)

Somehow, in the hubris-filled mind of Nate-of-three-weeks-ago, all that wishing and wanting had turned into what was possibly the worst—

—or, well, second worst, maybe, or perhaps third—

—one of the top ten worst ideas he'd ever had.

Valentine's Day. An old-world holiday, the sort of thing Nick would remember. The sort of thing that might _mean_ something to Nick, seeing as how all the trench coats and fedoras and cliche detective lines in the world couldn't hide the warmth that lurked beneath Nick's synthetic skin. 

The man was a romantic at heart. Nate appreciated that about him, loved that about him, even, and in the past few weeks he'd also come to despair of that fact deeply because there was no holiday worse for trying to celebrate in a post-apocalyptic land of barely-restrained anarchy than Valentine's Day and there was no one worse for trying to celebrate it with than Nick Valentine.

"Nick," Nate said, sitting on a wobbly-legged chair with the chairback between his legs and his arms folded over the top slat, "how's the case coming along? You think maybe you need to take a break?"

Nick blinked out of his stupor, finally tearing himself away from the sheaf of papers he'd been staring at for the past half-hour. His brilliant yellow eyes cast a soft glow about the dimly-lit room as he turned to look at Nate. "Hm?" he said, and then, with a glance towards the clock ticking away in one corner of the room, "Oh, hell, is it really that late?" One hand drifted towards his forehead, as if to run his fingers through hair he didn't have. "You must be starving, too. You been sitting here all that time?"

Nick was the sort of person who, if he'd served in Alaska with Nate all those years ago, would have had a line of admiring superior officers going, _Man's a damn robot, I swear, I don't know when he sleeps._ He pursued each case with a single-minded intensity, refusing to so much as pause his search until he'd either found the culprit or beat his head bruised and bloody (rusted and oily?) against every available lead. And, while most men of that sort at least had to break occasionally for food or sleep, Nick had the advantage of being an actual robot and therefore able to focus long past the point any organic person would be dropping where they stood.

"I'm doing fine," Nate said. "Had some jerky while I was sitting here, caught up on some reading." What kind of jerky, he wasn't sure; he tried not to think too much about what went into his food. The book, at least, was a pre-war dimestore thriller, a little bit moldy around the spine but predictable and safe. "You ready to go, though? I still need to show you something, if you've got the time."

If Nick didn't have the time, after all the preparation that had gone into this, Nate might just decide to fuck right off to the Children of the Atom and take a vow of radiation-enforced celibacy. Would be a whole lot easier than trying to pick the shattered pieces of his ego up off the floor.

He should've just gotten Nick a stack of missing persons reports as a present. At least that was guaranteed to make him happy.

If he'd done that, though, he'd really never manage to pry Nick out of the agency ever again, and that would be a crying shame. Everyone needed a little help lightening up occasionally, to keep the endless flood of small tragedies from sucking you down into despair like a lost traveler into quicksand. Most of Nate's people used drugs or drink to help with that—and Nate couldn't say he _disapproved_ of the technique, exactly; it would be awfully hypocritical of him if he did—but Nick wasn't likely to get much out of either and so someone needed to help him.

Nate had bravely volunteered for the task, and he took his duty very seriously. It had nothing at all to do with the curve of Nick's mouth when he smiled, or the sheepish way he tucked his hat low when he was flustered, or the little noises Nate could coax out of him if he kissed him just right.

Nick pulled at the brim of his ragged fedora and said, "You know I've always got time for you," half like he was some detective out of a pulpy old novel with a black-and-white cover and an author named Dirk Hardstone or Hunter Killman, and half like he was the romantic hero of the sort of drive-in movie they used to play so teenagers could get handsy with each other in the back seats of their parents' cars. 

It shouldn't have been charming. It very definitely was.

"Come on, then," Nate said, "Time's a wastin'," and then he went to Nick's side and all but physically pulled him out of his office chair, got him looking away from those cold cases of his, and then—because he was full of nervous, frustrated energy and because Nick just looked so fucking good in that coat of his sometimes—he put one hand around Nick's waist and the other up against his ragged cheek and pulled him in for a kiss.

Nick made a desperate little noise when his back hit the wall. Nate took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, opened his mouth to Nick and groaned when he felt Nick's tongue against his. Nick tasted overwhelmingly of cigarettes, ash ground into his skin and smoke coating everything he owned. Somehow Nate found himself even liking that about him, which was probably a good sign he was in deep.

A few moments later, Nick broke the kiss. For a second he just stared at Nate, panting despite not needing air, and then he seemed to remember himself. "Thought you said you were hungry?" he asked wryly.

"I am." Nate dragged his mouth against the curve of Nick's jaw, nipped gently at the torn flesh there.

Nick bit down on a hungry little noise, pressing against Nate, before finally sliding his metal-frame arm between them and forcing some distance between them. "Very funny," he said, "but let's get some actual food in you before anything else."

Nate rolled his eyes. "Worrywart." Nick had lost his sense for how often people needed to eat after a century or so of not eating at all, and apparently he'd decided to compensate for that being religiously precise on making sure Nate never skipped a meal. It was overkill, in Nate's opinion—his ribs hardly jutted out at all, he was already doing better than most folks here—but it was endearing nonetheless.

They pulled themselves together at the door to the agency: Nate sliding on a warmer overcoat, Nick adjusting his hat and coat until he no longer looked quite so thoroughly kissed. Nick rushed back to his desk for a moment, and Nate was just about ready to grab him and yank him right out the door, but all Nick did was grab a sheaf of those papers of his and tuck them up inside his coat.

"Seriously?" Nate asked. "You start looking at those again while I'm eating and I'm kicking you out."

Nick laughed. "I won't, promise, I just—don't want to leave them lying around. Sensitive stuff, you know?"

It was a bullshit excuse, but what the hell. Nate could distract him if he started trying to poke his nose back in the files during dinner.

Outside, a light snow was falling, radioactive enough to set his Geiger counter clicking but not so hot as to actually worry him. Diamond City's haphazardly-placed lamps outlined the flakes with gleaming halos. A thin layer had already stuck to the dirt-packed ground of the lower stands; it wasn't so long ago it would've soaked right through Nate's shoes. He was lucky to be able to afford better now. Thick leather reinforced with strips of metal kept him warm and dry even in worse weather than this. 

"We headed up to yours?" Nick asked. 

Nate twisted around to look at him. "Noodles first. Then my place." He tilted his head back as they walked, stuck his tongue out to try and catch a few drifting snowflakes. 

Nick followed along a few steps behind. He was shy about looking fond of Nate in public. Liked to keep distant enough for plausible deniability, though the denial had long since stopped being _plausible_ for anyone who knew them even halfway well. Nate didn't know if it was some residual paranoia of the other Nick's, Jenny's ghost haunting him still, or a side effect of his own home-grown synth-based insecurities. Heaven forbid folks around here know the metal man had a man of his own. They might start bleating about The Institute more than they already did.

(Whatever the reason, it left Nate nursing a whole lot of guilty fantasies about dragging Nick down to the front door of Home Plate on a busy summer day and kissing him bold and filthy right there in front of everyone.)

Takahashi served him up his usual with a cheerful " _Nan-ni shimasu-ka_?" and a jerky little wave that might've been him trying to dislodge the snow settling on his metal form but Nate chose to take as a greeting. After the food was packed up, piping hot and smelling like heaven, they walked themselves over to Home Plate. Nate was fairly vibrating with nerves. It reminded him of laying down mine-traps in super mutant territory; he'd set everything up, planned it all out to the last, and now he just had to wait and see whether everything would work out or whether he was fucked. (Well, hopefully he would end up fucked by the end of this. But in the fun sort of way.)

He scraped his snow-covered boots against the ragged scrap-plastic doormat as he fumbled the key into the lock. "Some weather we're having, huh?" 

"No kidding," Nick said.

"I mean, I guess it's pretty typical, though, right?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah, even the snow's irradiated nowadays. It's a shame, but"—he shrugged—"so it goes."

"Well, yeah, that. And, I mean, just the snow too, seeing as it's the middle of February and all." Fuck. Nate wished he were inside already so he could throw himself out the window. Talk about a piss-poor attempt at a segue. 

Nick gave him an odd sort of look. "Sure is."

The key clicked in the lock. Nate swung the door open and said, "Nick," just as Nick took a step forward and said, "Nate."

They both froze. For a long moment they just stared each other down.

"You go ahead," Nick said. 

"No, no." Nate waved a hand at Nick. "You're my guest. Please."

He'd expected some sort of comment— _guest? Is that what they call it these days?_ —but instead Nick just said, "Right," and shifted in place. Not like he was trying to mess with him or anything. Like he was nervous, and trying to hide it, and trying to gather his wits.

 _Shit,_ Nate thought, stomach plunging towards the floor.

And then Nick reached into his coat and pulled the sheaf of papers back out, thrust them into a very confused Nate's arms.

"Uh. Thanks?" He didn't know what he was supposed to do with case files.

Except. Nate turned the papers over. Except the writing was too neat to be case files, nice and printed with none of Nick's haphazard red-pen scribblings overlaying the page. Except Nick wasn't looking at him like a man who'd just given him case files.

"It's, ah." Nick shoved his hands into his pockets, radiating nerves. "It's not much, and I don't know if you want them, but... they're yours, really."

A property deed, marked with a familiar address. Tax forms, bills, military certificates. A marriage license and a birth certificate. All old and yellowed and yet intact, all bearing his name somewhere on them.

These were... Nate's hands shook as he paged through the papers. These were his life. The man he'd been before. Where the hell had Nick even managed to find these?

The silence stretched out. He couldn't speak over the lump in his throat. (There was Nora's signature, there was Shaun's name printed in stark black-and-yellowed-white.) Nick shifted back and forth and finally said, "I don't know if you keep track of the dates anymore, but it's the fourteenth and I just thought..."

"Oh my god," Nate breathed. "Fuck. I can't believe this. Did you seriously?"

Nick winced, worry and resignation both flashing across his face (he'd been prepared for Nate to hate it, hadn't he? He hadn't expected any gratitude and he'd gone out and done it anyway). Nate grabbed his arm before he could turn away. "Wait," he said, "no, it's amazing, it's wonderful, I just—"

There was no explanation that would make sense. Nate pulled Nick through the doors Home Plate and into the little warehouse area he'd converted into a living space and workshop. Refurbished old furniture lined the corners of the rooms, mutfruit-dyed rugs hung on the walls. And, in the center of the room, stood three old-world filing cabinets, buffed and polished and painted to a sparkling-new shine, each of them matching the brand in the Valentine Detective Agency.

(He'd thought it would be a good idea. Get Nick something he'd use, help clear some of those endless stacks of paper up off the floor in the process. Except it turned out that the brand of cabinet Nick used was more specific than he'd thought—pre-war police station chic, bomb-proof and radiation-proof and lockpick-proof—and that the only places they hadn't been looted out of yet were a few abandoned police stations. A few very, _very_ super mutant infested police stations. Dragging them back to Diamond City had been one thing; cleaning the stench of gore and rot out of them quite another.)

Nick said, "Oh," real soft and sweet and surprised.

"Yours is better," Nate admitted. "I thought I— _mpph!_ "

He very suddenly couldn't talk anymore, thanks to Nick's hands on his shoulders and Nick's lips on his lips. Nate stepped backwards until he hit the wall next to the door, and when Nick went to press him up against it he pulled away and said, "Wait, wait!"

He was holding both noodles in broth and irreplaceable pre-war paperwork. Not a good combination.

Nick waited generously until Nate had set his food down, and then he was back on him again, hands sliding over his back and shoulders and arms like he couldn't bear not to touch him. 

"You really that into filing paperwork?" Nate asked. Not that he was complaining.

In return, Nick gave him the _you-must-be-kidding-me_ look. "It's a good gift," he said.

"Not half as good as yours." God, he'd have to make frames for those papers. He had the glass and the metal. Maybe he could hang some of them here and take the others back to Sanctuary. 

"Right," Nick snorted. "Nothing beats papers."

"Says the man excited over filing cabinets."

Nate was smiling. His face felt hot. He couldn't stop looking at Nick, at the way Nick was smiling back at him.

"Well, then," Nick said, and he pressed a kiss to Nate's collar bone, all heat and rough skin. "Agree to disagree?"

"I _suppose_ ," Nate sighed. He let Nick guide him backwards, let them fall onto the overstuffed couch together in a pile of limbs and leather. "Happy Valentine's Day," he said into the curve of Nick's molded ear, and Nick laughed in the way that meant he was thinking _you sap_ and enjoying the hell out of it anyway as he kissed Nate again.

For once, Nate thought as Nick fumbled with the zipper on his armor, raiding a super mutant settlement had actually been worth it. That was perhaps the biggest surprise of all.

(And then Nick managed to slip the zipper open and slid his metal hand down across the gap of exposed skin on his chest, and Nate didn't think about anything else for a while.)


End file.
